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Ceramic Makers

David Winkley

Ceramics

David Winkley trained as a painter at the School of Fine Art, Reading University and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1963 he went to Dartington to teach art history and drawing, and whilst there met the late Bernard Forrester, a greatly-influential ceramics teacher. As a result of this chance encounter, he left teaching and in 1964 opened his first pottery in Bristol with Bernard Forrester's help and encouragement.

In 1966 David moved to Lower Vellow, near Williton in Somerset, to a large workshop which he now shares with his wife, the silk painter Sybille Wex. Since then he has made a particularly extensive range of hand-thrown practical domestic ware for oven and table together with decorative one-off pieces in both stoneware and porcelain. His pots are finished in quiet grey or soft blue glazes decorated with lively brushwork or wax-resist techniques. All the pots are fired in a large two-chambered down-draught kiln which David designed and built himself.

He has been a visiting lecturer in ceramics at Harvard and McGill Universities in North America, an external examiner at several English colleges and is the author of a practical book on pottery making. David is a long-serving member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen.

Pauline Zelinski

Ceramics

Pauline is a well-established ceramic artist working from her studio in Exeter. She exhibits and sells her work in many galleries and at exhibitions across the country. Her work was recently featured in the book The Ceramic Surface.

Each of Pauline's beautifully decorated pots is individually made from white earthenware clay. The underglaze colours are mixed and hand-painted onto each piece before the biscuit firing. Careful mixing and patient building-up of the colours produces vibrant tones and hues, and the final glazing and firing reveals the full intensity of the painting. The individual treatment means that each pot is a unique piece which will never be duplicated.

Her pots are not only highly decorative but most of them are also useful around the home, because she likes to produce items such as jugs and a wide range of bowls - fruit bowls, dessert bowls, even pedestal bowls. Decorated tiles with a variety of designs are a recent addition. She is always glad to consider special orders, especially for commemorative or presentation pieces, and we can put you in touch with her. Photographs of her pots can be seen on the Pauline Zelinski website and examples of her work can be seen in public collections at Reading Museum and the International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy.

Arwyn Jones

Ceramics

Anne works in what may be considered a “traditional” way, using the wheel to create sound functional forms. The utilitarian wares of Spain and Portugal, and the deep and subtle glaze finishes achieved in the Far East form the backbone of her inspiration. She endeavours to create pieces with a simplicity emanating primarily from function, and an elegance that is clearly derived from the Orient. Her over riding intention is for the resulting wares to be undeniably functional and a pleasure to use.

Description of processes used

Pieces are thrown using a smooth white stoneware body and either left unaltered or allowed to stiffen before being cut in order to remove sections and then reassembled. Surfaces of freshly thrown pieces are either marked using simple tools to create areas where the glazes can pool or run, or a slip made from the clay body is applied and then combed away leaving subtle ridges to catch and direct the pooling glaze. Dry work is biscuit fired and then glazed before being fired to 1280 degrees centigrade in the oxidising atmosphere of an electric kiln. The glazes used are the result of continual testing, trying to achieve the correct balances between colour, gloss, fluidity, opacity and durability.

Clive Bowen

Ceramics

Clive Bowen studied painting and etching at Cardiff College of Art, 1960-1964, and was then apprenticed for four years to Michael Leach at Yelland Pottery. He went on to spend a year as a production thrower of large pots at C.H.Brannams in Barnstaple, and finally established his own workshop at Shebbear in Devon, close to the red Devon clay and sawmills which could provide him with his main raw materials. At Shebbear he built a large round down-draught woodfired kiln, to a design based on Michael Cardew's kiln at Wenford Bridge.

Clive's pots are all thrown in red earthenware and range from massive oval planting troughs to tiny eggcups, taking in mugs, tankards, teapots, plates, bowls and dishes of all sizes, great ceremonial dishes and garden planters. His garden pots are mainly unglazed terracotta, strong and simply decorated with patterns in relief plus the warm, toasted, effect of the kiln flames. The domestic ware is glazed and may be decorated with three contrasting slips, with the techniques of slip trailing, combing and sgraffito all used with great confidence and fluidity.

His pots are in public collections at the V&A, the Crafts Council Collection, the National Museum of Wales, the Ulster Museum, and Exeter Museum. He has exhibited widely in the UK, France, Hong Kong, Germany, Japan, India and the USA. and is constantly in demand for his lectures, workshops and teaching, both at home and abroad.